In the absence of local evidence on how road attributes affect traffic injuries, India and other low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) are replicating safety treatments used in high-income countries (HICs). However the traffic environment and injury outcomes in India involves many more pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists than in HICs. As a result, HIC interventions may not be effective in India and could even lead to an increase in deaths and injuries. Traffic injuries already rank among the top-10 causes of death in India, and among the top-5 causes among children 5-14 years old. Therefore, we propose to establish and build a long-term research program in India that uses local empirical data to assess how road designs affect traffic injuries. We will analyze crash data to identify priorities for road treatments in India, adapt existing methods for evaluating interventions in the Indian context, and initiate a training program to build capacity of researchers and practitioners to design safer roads. This project has three specific aims:
Aim 1 : Identify research priorities for a national program to evaluate how road design affects safety. We will develop a national traffic deaths database consisting of district-level tabulations from official government reporting, and data extracted from a police case files in a sample of districts in the country. We analyze this database to identify the most common crash scenarios and develop a list of road treatments that should be the focus of a national research program aimed at evaluating the safety of road infrastructure.
Aim 2 : Test a method for evaluating road designs and develop guidelines for evaluation research. We evaluate how the use of two road treatments (vertical curbs and paved shoulders) affects traffic injury outcomes using a case-control study design. Using these as illustrative examples, we develop general guidelines for evaluating the safety of road infrastructure in India. These guidelines will adapt the best methodological practices for evaluations to the crash scenarios and the quality of data available in India.
Aim 3 : Build capacity of researchers and practitioners to improve safety of road infrastructure. We will assess needs for capacity development through an online survey, and develop a blended (online plus face-to-face) training course that will be offered to researchers and practitioners who work for the public work departments. We will develop a web portal that will contain resources for students and educators interested in highway safety and methods for evaluation. The project will train four graduate students at IIT Delhi by supporting their thesis research on highway safety.
In the absence of local research on road-related safety interventions, roads and highways in India are being designed to safety specifications of high-income countries. This project aims to establish a research program in India to generate evidence of how road infrastructure affects traffic injuries under local conditions. We develop a national traffic deaths database, identify research priorities for evaluating safety of infrastructure, develop and test methods for evaluation, and build capacity of researchers and practitioners to sustain an ongoing research program in India.
